One day I was sitting in my cube, working on a project that had me stumped. I needed to have each data sheet look similar but somehow be easily identifiable as different. So I played with the colors on each sheet… but I just couldn’t get them to coordinate well. I went to my creative director and, per usual, she had a wonderful solution. Use kuler.

What is kuler? “Adobe® Kuler® is a web-hosted application for generating color themes that can inspire any project. No matter what you’re creating, with Kuler you can experiment quickly with color variations and browse thousands of themes from the Kuler community.” In my terms, it’s a palette generator! Back before I got into designing on computers, I was drawing and coloring on paper. What I usually did first when starting a piece was make little circles of color on another piece of paper to test how they would look. Sometimes I would freestyle it. That didn’t usually work so well.

To my issue- why are palettes so important?! I’m sure there are folks out there that don’t need palettes or theme guides to help them see the colors work together well. Some folks are gifted. Others, like me, just have to practice and practice. Maybe some day I’ll be so practiced that I won’t need to make a palette beforehand. Unlikely. So for us normal folk we can use different methods and tools to help us select the best possible color choices. Maybe you’ve just created a logo in black and white and you need to find the right set of colors for the identity. But not only must you coordinate with the logo colors, you also have to think about the colors used in the website, company clothing or accessories. Not to mention conveying the right feeling or vibe via the colors. And so, I choose to make palettes or color themes in all of my projects now. It just seems silly not to when there are such nifty tools out there like kuler.

This site might be old-hat for some but I only just learned of it this year. Thanks to my Creative Director at work, I now have a resource that I come back to time and again. I wanted to help support this wonderful site but sharing it.

So what is The Noun Project? “The Noun Project is building a global visual language that everyone can understand. We want to enable our users to visually communicate anything to anyone.”

From my experience, in a corporate setting we use these symbols in brochures and catalogs to help convey or reinforce an idea. Instead of bolding or headlining something you want to call out like ‘Fresh foods’, I might use a carrot symbol. Or instead of ‘weather resistant’ I might choose an umbrella. And it can get deeper than that, no doubt. I look forward to using more of these symbols, making smart selections for witty correlations.

Now I hope you all use this resource to help better your designs and communications. Some are free, some are not. Even if you’re not a designer, next time you think about using clip art, I hope you’ll decide to step outside the box.

They download as .svg so you’ll need a program capable of reading it and saving it as an .eps or .png. If you don’t have Adobe Illustrator, Gimp is a free open source program that does the job just fine.

Ah fall. The leaves are falling, the wind is calling, and this stupid rain just won’t stop long enough for me to get any good pictures of my hairpieces. Don’t get me wrong, rain is awesome. Rain is important. But why can’t it just rain for a day or two and be done? At least it’s given me more incentive to stay inside and work on my projects.

The hairpieces in this post are some of the few not for sale because they’ve already been sold or I like them too much to sell (or there are things about them I don’t think are good enough to sell). BUT if you see one that you like, just let me know here or on Etsy. I would be more than happy to recreate one for you. Keep in mind that all of my pieces one of a kind. No piece will ever look EXACTLY like the one before. Don’t worry, they can get pretty close.

Get excited… I finally did it! This shop will be dedicated to my kanzashi (that’s Japanese for hairpieces) and maybe some fine art giclee prints. It’s called Big & Blooming and I hope you check it out and pass it on. I’ll be updating more pieces in the next few days so be sure to check back. Below are a few I’ve added recently today.

Real quick – I’ll be attempting to update my sketches and concepts to tumblr mainly, keeping all final pieces and major project workings to here and deviantART. Follow me there if you’re interested in that sort of process thing. Personally, I thrive on seeing other artists’ works in progress. Fuel for the fire. I don’t know if my stuff will do that for anyone but I feel silly looking at all the awesomeness and not attempting to contribute myself. http://meredithdesign.tumblr.com/